As I've noted here, there have been quite a few travels during the last few months. On the last leg of the trips, the Mild Wife and I ended up in Colorado to visit some family. During that time, we had some fun exchanges with my sister, my brother-in-law, and her kids. Not surprisingly, the ones with the kids were the most amusing. For this particular post, I'm going to describe one of the food-related ones. Specifically, I made causa with my nephew at one point.
Now, if you've never had Peruvian causa, I added a link to a Wikipedia article that has a picture of it. That article is in Spanish, because the dish in question is more well-known in countries that speak Spanish. Still, if you want to get an idea of what it is, the picture there is a good way to get the gist of it. In the simplest terms, it's a potato/tuna casserole. The version I've always seen isn't as fancy as the one in the link; we usually just used a big Pyrex container and made a big sheet of it. I recognize the picture as causa, but I usually make it in a much different shape.
Part of the reason why I like this dish is it's relatively simple to make. You season and mash some potatoes, lay down a layer of said potatoes, add in a layer of tuna/onion/lime, and then finish it off with a top layer of mashed potatoes. It's a pretty tasty combination, and I've always appreciated it. I also figured that it might be a good way to get the munchkins to eat some tuna, so I was willing to give it a go.
However, part of the trick of getting a kid to eat the food is to involve them in the process. Rather than just plopping down a completed dish at the dinner table, I happily accepted crowd participation when my nephew asked if he could help. Obviously, he needed some supervision, but we made it together.
I boiled and peeled the potatoes myself, because I didn't want a little kid having to deal with the heat or with having to peel a hot potato. However, as soon as that was done, it was time to collaborate. First of all, we had to mash the potatoes. I chose to user a potato ricer to make this process simpler, which is where my nephew first began to help. He clearly wasn't strong enough to actually press the potato through the ricer, but I would have him "start" the process by pressing the potato as much as he could. I would then take over after he'd "made it easier for me," to finish pressing the potato through the ricer.
Incidentally, this was where I first heard him use "smooosh." No, that's not a typo. I added an extra "o" because he had a very distinctive way of pronouncing the word. He didn't say "smush," he elongated the sound of the o's, making it a longer syllable than anytime I've ever heard the word before. The effect was something that sounded like "smooosh." In this case, he was talking about smoooshing the potatoes.
Once we finished with that, I chopped the onions, sliced the limes, and opened the cans of tuna. All of those steps involved a sharp object that I didn't want a little child handling, so I did those myself. Then, I called him back over so that we could continue on with our work. He helped me smooosh the limes in order to get all of the juice out from them. Then, it was just a matter of mixing it all together. We grabbed a bowl, and he mixed as much as I did (though his motions might've been a little smaller than mine).
All of the ingredients were now ready, so we had to assemble the dish. First, we had to lay down the bottom layer of potatoes. He helped to scoop out the potato into a mound on the container, and then we smoooshed it as much as possible into a flat layer of potato. He could obviously help here, and he enjoyed the smoooshing. Still, he doesn't quite have the motor skills and patience to get a nice smooth layer, so I told him we had to look for any bumpy spots and make the smooth. That concept came easily to him, so the Mild Wife told me that she overheard quite a bit of, "Tio Samuel, it's bumpy there. Smooosh it." It was a good time, let me tell you.
The next step was roughly the same, in that we scooped out the tuna mixture on top of the potato, and then made sure we had a nice flat layer of it. Again, we had to smooosh the layer to get it looking right, so the two year old was having a blast. I'm not going to lie, I enjoyed the process, too. When we got to the last layer of potato, I was almost sad for the process to end. Fortunately for me, it involved a whole lot of flattening and smoothing over. You know what that means? More smoooshing. Lots and lots of smoooshing. Both of us were thoroughly amused.
By the end, we had a full sheet of causa, and we were pleased with the finished product. We even took a picture with the dish, because we were proud of our accomplishment. My favorite part, though, by far, was the direction to "smooosh" the ingredients. I'm pretty much always going to think of that whenever I make causa. Cook with the little kids in your lives, folks. They will learn to do something, and you'll enjoy the process. Trust me, it's a good time.
Now, if you've never had Peruvian causa, I added a link to a Wikipedia article that has a picture of it. That article is in Spanish, because the dish in question is more well-known in countries that speak Spanish. Still, if you want to get an idea of what it is, the picture there is a good way to get the gist of it. In the simplest terms, it's a potato/tuna casserole. The version I've always seen isn't as fancy as the one in the link; we usually just used a big Pyrex container and made a big sheet of it. I recognize the picture as causa, but I usually make it in a much different shape.
Part of the reason why I like this dish is it's relatively simple to make. You season and mash some potatoes, lay down a layer of said potatoes, add in a layer of tuna/onion/lime, and then finish it off with a top layer of mashed potatoes. It's a pretty tasty combination, and I've always appreciated it. I also figured that it might be a good way to get the munchkins to eat some tuna, so I was willing to give it a go.
However, part of the trick of getting a kid to eat the food is to involve them in the process. Rather than just plopping down a completed dish at the dinner table, I happily accepted crowd participation when my nephew asked if he could help. Obviously, he needed some supervision, but we made it together.
I boiled and peeled the potatoes myself, because I didn't want a little kid having to deal with the heat or with having to peel a hot potato. However, as soon as that was done, it was time to collaborate. First of all, we had to mash the potatoes. I chose to user a potato ricer to make this process simpler, which is where my nephew first began to help. He clearly wasn't strong enough to actually press the potato through the ricer, but I would have him "start" the process by pressing the potato as much as he could. I would then take over after he'd "made it easier for me," to finish pressing the potato through the ricer.
Incidentally, this was where I first heard him use "smooosh." No, that's not a typo. I added an extra "o" because he had a very distinctive way of pronouncing the word. He didn't say "smush," he elongated the sound of the o's, making it a longer syllable than anytime I've ever heard the word before. The effect was something that sounded like "smooosh." In this case, he was talking about smoooshing the potatoes.
Once we finished with that, I chopped the onions, sliced the limes, and opened the cans of tuna. All of those steps involved a sharp object that I didn't want a little child handling, so I did those myself. Then, I called him back over so that we could continue on with our work. He helped me smooosh the limes in order to get all of the juice out from them. Then, it was just a matter of mixing it all together. We grabbed a bowl, and he mixed as much as I did (though his motions might've been a little smaller than mine).
All of the ingredients were now ready, so we had to assemble the dish. First, we had to lay down the bottom layer of potatoes. He helped to scoop out the potato into a mound on the container, and then we smoooshed it as much as possible into a flat layer of potato. He could obviously help here, and he enjoyed the smoooshing. Still, he doesn't quite have the motor skills and patience to get a nice smooth layer, so I told him we had to look for any bumpy spots and make the smooth. That concept came easily to him, so the Mild Wife told me that she overheard quite a bit of, "Tio Samuel, it's bumpy there. Smooosh it." It was a good time, let me tell you.
The next step was roughly the same, in that we scooped out the tuna mixture on top of the potato, and then made sure we had a nice flat layer of it. Again, we had to smooosh the layer to get it looking right, so the two year old was having a blast. I'm not going to lie, I enjoyed the process, too. When we got to the last layer of potato, I was almost sad for the process to end. Fortunately for me, it involved a whole lot of flattening and smoothing over. You know what that means? More smoooshing. Lots and lots of smoooshing. Both of us were thoroughly amused.
By the end, we had a full sheet of causa, and we were pleased with the finished product. We even took a picture with the dish, because we were proud of our accomplishment. My favorite part, though, by far, was the direction to "smooosh" the ingredients. I'm pretty much always going to think of that whenever I make causa. Cook with the little kids in your lives, folks. They will learn to do something, and you'll enjoy the process. Trust me, it's a good time.
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